Barron's 1100 Words You Need to Know » Week 20 - Day 5

There are many choice epithets* for cockroaches, and over the centuries man has been most resourceful* in concocting* adjectives to describe the insects. Whether you are going to get excited over a roach, write a poem, take a College Board examination, or compose a letter to a loved one, it helps to have a rich vocabulary.

Match the twenty words with their meanings. *Reminder: Record answers on a sheet of paper.

Review Words

DEFINITIONS

  1. a. different
  2. b. sentimental
  3. c. building
  4. d. very sad
  5. e. humor, lightness of disposition
  6. f. vague, not clear
  7. g. expressing a low opinion
  8. h. eating any kind of food
  9. i. accuse
  10. j. state of rest
  11. k. still existing
  12. l. powerful
  13. m. annoying
  14. n. fragrant
  15. o. moderate in eating or drinking
  16. p. keen, sharp, biting
  17. q. torrid
  18. r. difficulties
  19. s. without subsiding
  20. t. scolded
  21. u. insincerely
  22. v. left to suffer the blame
  23. w. do something in a cursory* manner
  24. x. remove someone’s advantage

REVIEW WORDS

  1. abstemious __________
  2. derogatory __________
  3. disparate __________
  4. edifice __________
  5. extant __________
  6. indict __________
  7. levity __________
  8. lugubrious __________
  9. maudlin __________
  10. nebulous __________
  11. omnivorous __________
  12. pesky __________
  13. puissant __________
  14. redolent __________
  15. repose __________
  16. reviled __________
  17. sultry __________
  18. trenchant __________
  19. unabated __________
  20. vicissitudes __________

Idioms

IDIOMS

  1. left holding the bag __________
  2. a lick and a promise __________
  3. tongue in cheek __________
  4. take the wind out of one’s sails __________

Make a record of those words you missed.

HAPLESS HEADLINES (From Week 20)

Restore meaning to the headlines below by inserting the word that the careless typesetter omitted.

  • a. Pesky
  • b. Maudlin
  • c. Repose
  • d. Abstemious
  • e. Sultry
  • f. Vicissitudes
  • g. Redolent
  • h. Levity
  • i. Derogatory
  • j. Unabated
  • k. Reviled
  • l. Puissant
  • m. Nebulous
  • n. Trenchant
  • o. Lugubrious
  • p. Disparate
  • q. Indict
  • r. Extant
  • s. Omnivorous
  • t. Edifice
  1. Rioting Continues __________ in Men’s Correctional Facility
  2. Torch Singer’s __________ Songs Raise Temperature in Night Club
  3. __________ Life-Style Results in Huge Weight Loss for Actor
  4. Architect Celebrated for New All-Glass __________
  5. Serious Judge Will Tolerate No __________ in His Courtroom
  6. Grand Jury Set to __________ Bookkeeper in Million Dollar Fraud
  7. Baseball Manager to Apologize for __________ Remarks about Umpire
  8. Only Three Copies of Shakespeare’s Handwriting __________ , Says Elizabethan Scholar
  9. Handicapped Climbers Overcome Many __________ to Scale Mt. Everest
  10. Dictator __________ by South American Patriots

WORDSEARCH 20

Using the clues listed below, record separately using one of the new words you learned this week for each blank in the following story.

Clues
  1. 1st Day
  2. 4th Day
  3. 1st Day
  4. 2nd Day
  5. 1st Day

Chlorine Compounds on Trial

The chances are that the water supply where you live is disinfected by chlorine, one of the elements on the periodic table. Yet, (1)__________ complaints about chlorine continue (2)__________ , identifying it as a health and environmental risk.

Greenpeace, the environmental activist group, stands ready to (3)__________ chlorinated organic elements, alleging that they are toxic. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency is reexamining the health hazards that are prevalent when materials containing chlorine are processed at high temperatures. And, worldwide, nations are banning chlorine compounds that destroy the earth’s protective ozone layer. Harsh treatment, it would seem, for one of nature’s basic elements, a component of the table salt we use.

When we enter a pool that is (4)__________ with the aroma of chlorine, we don’t associate it with the (5)__________ element now being blamed for tumors, reproductive problems, arrested development, destruction of wildlife, and sundry other ills that plague our planet.

A scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund thinks that chlorinated chemicals should be phased out. “We know they will be persistent if they get into the environment,” she said. “They are soluble, so they will build up in the fat of fish, birds, and people.”

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